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Promising BioHack Startup Feature #1 (Zocdoc)
- Richard J Yun
- Nov 27, 2019
- 2 min read
Today is the start of a series where I feature 'biohacking' startups that I find interesting and could possibly revolutionize the future.
Whether you are planning to invest in some trending startups in the future or just interested in learning more about biohacking, I hope you enjoy today's feature.
Zocdoc
Quick Overview
- Zocdoc is an online medical care appointment booking service, providing free of charge medical care search facility for end users by integrating information about medical practices and doctors' individual schedules in a central location.
- Founded in 2007 by Cyrus Massoumi, Nick Ganju and Dr. Oliver Kharraz
Zocdoc's Business Model
- Zocdoc provides a scheduling system on paid subscription basis for medical personnel. The scheduling system can be accessed by subscribers both as an online service and via the deployed office calendar software, or integrated with their websites.[1] The subscriber's schedules are available to the patients. The company announced it changed the pricing model from subscription to referral fee in some markets in January, 2019.
Zocdoc's Mission
"We created Zocdoc to solve patient problems, beginning with online appointment-booking – and we haven’t stopped building since. With Zocdoc, you can see doctors’ open appointment times and book instantly online, make informed choices with verified reviews, and stay on top of important checkups with tailored reminders. And those pesky waiting room forms? Fill them out online, just once, and keep them forever."
How does Zocdoc search work?
Search on Zocdoc works similarly to search on most sites that you’re familiar with. Patients enter text into a search bar indicating, for example, a symptom, visit reason, specialty or doctor’s name, along with their location and insurance information. Each patient’s search results are based on what they’ve told us they need and other patient-centric criteria. When a patient does a search on Zocdoc.com or in our app, we use well-established and widely-cited search methodologies to list the most relevant Zocdoc providers for that patient. We also use technology that we call Patient-Powered Search to analyze millions of searches and translate a patient’s own colloquial language to medical specialties and terminology (for example, “gyno” becomes “obstetrician-gynecologist” but the patient doesn’t need to know how to spell the full specialty name), addressing the common disconnect between the way patients speak about their care and medical jargon. We like to say patients no longer have to be a doctor to find a doctor.
ZocDoc has 1.88 million total reviews.
A full review consists of text and a rating in three rating categories: overall, bedside manner, and wait time. For overall reviews, 85% are five-star reviews, 9% are four-star reviews, 2% are three-star reviews, 2% are two-star reviews, and 2% are one-star reviews.
Not only does Zocdoc’s free service make the appointment-booking process much easier, but it also makes it much faster despite a nationwide doctor shortage. This shortage has contributed to the national average wait time to see a physician of nearly three weeks. The typical Zocdoc patient, however, sees a doctor within 24 hours. Zocdoc helps uncover the “hidden supply” of appointments in doctors’ calendars caused by cancellations, no-shows and shifting schedules – up to 25 percent of a doctor’s day.”- Jaime Askew
Sources:
I'm a UofT student and this is a student exploration project sponsored by KiImpact.com
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